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The Pain when your Polygamous Spouse is having a Baby with #2

It’s bigger than love, greater than your own life. It’s new life. And it’s your responsibility.

When you have a child together, your relationship changes. You’re not just husband and wife anymore. You are a mother and a father. Your life doesn’t entirely belong to you anymore – because you have a child.

Having a baby makes your love for your partner grow, you are sharing something indescribably amazing. And this new life has sprung from your love.

My first husband kept going over this, his pain and grief and dismay made him elaborate on this over and over. And there wasn’t much I could say to comfort him. He was right.

I just kept reminding him I love him too. And we have children too. The same bond exists between us.

20 thoughts on “The Pain when your Polygamous Spouse is having a Baby with #2”

I came here because I was looking for writings about polygamous first wife when her husband is having baby with second and I was amazed to see that you are writing about having a baby with second husband :0 I am hurting so bad for my husband is having baby with second and iI have not adjusted to polygamy and now the baby is making everything 1000 time worst. I don’t know I can cope. I understand your husbands pain very much it is unbelievable a man is willing to go through this my husband I believe would kill me if I did so… Polygamy is unnatural to me and I believe men should not be polygamous it is unnatural and I cant make myself be content and now with baby coming I feel I could just die. I will read more of your blog and see more here. Thank you for writing you must be brave woman. 🙂 But I still dont know how one can live with spouse having baby with second. The thought makes me vomit and shiver.

Fiona,
If you don’t mind my asking, when you get a chance, would you share with us what finally developed with Mark, and the woman who had become his #2? The last we heard they had made some agreements that included divorce I think, and him paying for schooling? Something like that. Thanks Fiona.
Dale

I’m curious Fiona, how did you know that the baby was Graham’s and not Mark’s? I’m asking innocently, only because if you suspected your late menses was the possible onset of menopause it stands to reason that you might not have known exactly when you ovulated etc. Also assuming you have sex with both your husbands regularly enough for it to be possible that either could’ve been the father. What if it is Mark’s, after all? Wouldn’t that crush Graham now that he’s believing it’s his?

Dear jamylah, so nice to see you again 🙂 Mark was castrated after we had our two children, because he felt at the time he would never want any more children and he wanted me off the pill since he was worried about my health. So we all knew right away the baby’s Graham’s.

This is the best blog ever! I am hungering to learn what’s happened – why did Mark come back? How are you now? Where will you live with the baby, will you keep going between both husbands? Love, take care!

This is where religion helps. A muslimah would maybe feel sad that her husband was having a baby with his other wife but she would turn to Allah for comfort and she would be able to be thankful for her husband’s happiness and the fact that another woman could get the benefit of a good husband and a father to her child. It is all in the hands of Allah. Your husband of course gets no help from his religion since in islam your relationship is haram and you are making a cuckold of him. But Allah must have a plan with all of this and I would ask your husband to take care of his own seen and please not take any anger or jealousy out on this baby who is innocent of any sin. But muslim believers should remember to marry women for their religious caracter nothing else. I hope muslim men read this blog and understand why they should cherish a good muslimah who will safeguard her husband’s property and name. I hope your child is born healthy and you can find your way back to a good life.

I am finding it more and more hard to believe that Allah would give some rights to some humans and not to others. I believe that men have turned religion into something that makes life better on them also I see many men who pick and choose and want polygamy for example but don’t want to let their wives keep their money and share everything equal. I saw somewhere somebody said “I love God but I have problems with parts of his fan-club”. 🙂 It is nasty when people say one must love the interpretations of religion otherwise one do not love Allah. I for one am more and more believing Fiona is right and men have turned true religion around and we have helped them. For me this is making polygamy very difficult for I am thinking all the time what my husband would do if I did this to him, and why I must take so much pain. I am glad you are back Fiona because I really need you.

It’s strange the way women want the same priviliges as men but they don’t want the same obligations. Women want men to help with the house and help with the children and now they want to have polygamy too 🙂 But they dont seem to be as eager to bear the finical burden for the family and they dont want to do the hard work. 🙂 And still they want respect. If I was to marry a woman and she wanted me to share the housework and kids I would sure want her to do half of the earning and half of the work on the car and so on. And I think I will write in my marriage contract that I want a divorce if she decides she wants another husband 😀

It’s strange the way men seem to think women are incapable of 1. bearing financial burdens and hard work, and 2. would shun the idea of working on things like the car. For your information, throughout the course of my marriage I earned far more than my husband and I came with 2 sets of Craftsman tools and the know-how to use them. I work on my car myself, thank you very much.
You’re well within your rights to want a divorce if your wife wants to marry another man, just as your wife has the right to divorce you if you want to marry another woman. That’s what being equal is.

Rayid,
You seem to have ignored the very obvious fact that more and more women are working these days and helping the family financially but the men’s attitudes to contribute to childcare and housework hasn’t changed much. One main reason that men like you don’t get a wife who is willing and capable of contributing financially to the family is that most intelligent women capable of earning well don’t marry men like you anymore (saying this based on my and many female friends’ own experience). The women who stay at home save the family tons of money. Just add up cost of hiring a live in housekeeper and nanny, eating out daily and so on. If you count the cost of these services even at the minimum wage rate their work will amount to a lot of money. Men very well remember their time spent (maybe hour or two on car every other month) but fail to see what a woman does DAILY. It seems you are the kind of man who think that they worked all week and now deserve to sit on the couch or do whatever they please on the weekend while your wife works without a day off. Intelligent women know not to marry those men or if they do marry them they have a choice of leaving them. This happened to a male colleague who earlier never mentioned how much pain his kids are until recently when he has to take care of them on his own half the time. He used to be so impatient with others for not doing their tasks fast enough and now he doesn’t have time or energy to do his own tasks and meet his own deadlines 😀
Women make difficult decisions and sometimes compromise with their career choices for the family. Women move to where her husband lives, works than choose to live where she can get a better paying better suited job for herself. That move sometimes means a long break in career, education or sometimes a lifelong compromise not to pursue career anymore. Men like you very conveniently ignore all this. When its time for women to put all the energy into career at the same time the clock starts ticking for them to have babies. While men are working hard to please their bosses and get promoted she is struggling with all the pains, changes in her body, housework and with the job. Then she spends sleepless nights taking care of the young kids. You men take so much pride in giving your name to the baby and want all the rights on the baby but don’t want to help raising them (Financial support for child doesn’t mean that the other spouse does all the real childcare work. In many countries women can very well get the financial support from Govt to raise that child but what nobody including the Govt can do is come take care of the kid 24×7, change the diapers and feed the baby). Women will happily go into the big bad world to earn money if that assures them the childcare and housework is taken care of by a free live in housekeeper (=house spouse). Many women can very well earn same as their husbands if not conditioned from the childhood through teens to adulthood to do all that men often get away without doing like help mom with chores, learn housework and cooking to make a good wife and compromise their careers or job choices for thankless men like you. (Thank God my husband is a REAL MAN whose manhood isn’t weak enough to get affected by doing some dishes or changing a diaper)

Rayid,
There is no place in world where men are not free to leave their marriage as and when they want so why would you needs a marriage contract to want a divorce. Unless you meant that you don’t want to give her any rights on joint property or child support in case she chooses to marry second.

Sorry if i was too harsh but this is what came to my mind after reading Rayids comment The smileys he used didn’t help much with the sexist comment. I see so many women suffer and struggle that this is the reaction i have for any sexist comment. No offense meant.

Thank you Laila for your comments. I love that women like you and others here in this blog exist. I love Islam myself, but several parts of the pure Islam seems to have been misinterpreted and used out of context by misogynous minded men, who claim to love God in one hand and perform the obligatory duties, and on the other hand have all these misogynous interpretations of religion and not even bother asking knowledgeable and enlightened women on their opinions of the interpretations. Its not the fault of the religion itself, it is the people who have twisted and turned the teachings to suit themselves and what they want. This misogyny in society has been here for centuries actually. We women should trust our deep instincts and go along with it and refuse to aid these men on their opinions. Also we should not take religious advice on sensitive matters, even regular matters as well, except from very trusted sources who make sense to us deep inside. Also some matters were prescribed in Islam because of a particular type of time and place which arose the need for the ayah to be revealed, and which is applicable in similar circumstances. But if those ayahs are taken out of context and interpreted according to the person’s own whims and to simply suit themselves, such as in the case of polygamy, it could end up producing a lot of injustice instead. Seeking out trustworthy sources is a hard job, and so is seeking the truth. But it is better than simply going with the flow and end up feeling unnecessarily oppressed inside.

Cant agree more Mariam that some measures were prescribed in Islam to solve the problems prevalent at that time e.g. wife beating and marrying unlimited number of women. Its not rocket science (event if it was the so intelligent and superior men should have understood it) but them don’t want to understand it because the other way is more convenient for them.
I personally believe that most religions were an effort to bring some order to society and decrease chaos and lawlessness and injustices. The sense of community relines provide and how sometimes religions help people live a responsible life style e.g. free of substance abuse is great but the problem comes when people take the words from primitive texts so literally. Also the whole concept that it came from God was just to help people at that time take it seriously. Of course there is good and bad inside us and if a good man tried to think and meditate and solve some of his society’s problems its ok to say that it came from the God because if there s any God i believe its inside everyone of us. I am glad there are women like you in Islam. I am also thankful that i am not born in a religion or society that oppresses women otherwise a woman like me would haven’t survived too long. So i have a lot of respect for all the Muslimahs out there.

I agree… The verses are taken out of context to support people’s own desires. The few verses that talks about polygamy (particularly in surah Nisa), were conveyed just after the battle of Badr, where there were a surplus of women who had lost their husbands. The polygamy rulings solved this societal problem plus it gave the women many rights, they were not treated like cattle (as they were before Islam, when they had no rights at all).

It’s as if people would take the verses which talks about killing infidels and just apply it in their daily life. Like, not liking your neighbour? Kill him, because the Quran says we should kill infidels. EXCEPT it does not, because that verse were directed to the enemies of the muslims, in a particular war, 1400 years ago! People are blind…

I don’t know if you know Rayid, the house Fiona and Mark lived in during their marriage, raising their kids, was Fiona’s. Seems like a wonderful big house, English country side style, from the way she describes it.

So what’s that again with the providing? I’d say it’s fair to say Fiona did provide. And raise their now grown up kids. Before the whole polygamy idea.

Avtually, I bought the house in the Chilterns with Graham 🙂 I also have a house in London I inherited from my parents, that’s where we lived most of the time when our children were small. I own half of my grandparents’ house in Scotland too. Our estate in Norfolk now belongs to my nephew, but that is where I spent most of my childhood.